Physician Heel Thyself
by redness
Summary: Why does Beverly feel like holding back is no longer an option?


Physician Heel Thyself  
  
With a towel wrapped around his waist and damp feet leaving dark imprints where he stepped Jean-Luc came down the stairs of his home.  
Water still dripping from his body he made his way to a computer terminal and tapped it on. "Yes." He barked.   
"Well," said a defiant doctor on the receiving end, "I see you're awake then."   
Picard softened his approach the instant he set eyes upon her. "I was just getting ready."  
Beverly grinned back at him from the screen on his desk, "Good. I wanted to make sure you didn't 'forget' your appointment."  
"No ma'am," he said with cheeky reverence, "as if you would let me."   
"Then don't be late," she paused, letting her grin dim down to a more suggestive smile, "and do wear more clothes when you come to see me. Crusher out."   
Picard began to protest about his interrupted shower, but she had already gone, leaving him talking to a blank screen and muttering something about 'that bloody woman' before he walked up the stairs to dry off and get dressed.  
  
"Looks like this medical came just in time," noted Doctor Crusher as Jean- Luc limped gingerly in to her office.   
He gave her a sarcastic little grin, "If you hadn't been so persistent about getting me here I wouldn't be limping."   
Beverly folded her arms and shot him a questioning look.   
"I stubbed my toe on the stairs when you had finished giving me my orders this morning." He explained.  
"Uhhu, I see and that's my fault is it?" She patted the bio-bed next to her, "Up," she commanded.   
Picard sat obediently, feet dangling like a child. He glanced around the room, "Has this place had another refit?"  
"Hmmm," Beverly knelt in front of him to pull his boots and socks off, "nothing but the best from the fleet for me you know."   
"Are you really that good?" he asked her as she ran a tricorder over his foot.  
Crusher looked up at him from her knees, "I'm the best." She said with a coquettish smile. "Yep," she continued, "You've broken your little toe."  
"All your fault." He told her lightly.  
Bev pursed her lips, "Really?" She felt blindly for a device from a tray next to her and picked the right one after two attempts. She held it by Picard's foot for a minute or so. "There," she said, rising to her feet, "all better."  
"Does that mean I'm free to go?"  
"Anyone would think you didn't want to spend time with me Jean-Luc."  
Picard let a smile play across his lips, "Oh no, I like spending time with you just fine, but well, I'd rather see you out of uniform."   
The doctor stood, silently and squarely opposite him.  
"Not in your official capacity as my doctor I mean."  
"Of course you do."   
"I can only try." He said in his defence.   
Smiling as she that morning Crusher replied, "And if you keep on trying I'm giving your medical care over to Katherine Pulaski."   
The corners of his mouth dropped. "There are some things you should never say Bev, not even in jest." He deadpanned.   
Beverly picked up the padd that held Jean-Luc's medical notes. "Okay, enough playing, down to business." She planted a monitor firmly on his forehead. "This will tell me everything that's going on in your head."  
"Are you sure you want to know?"  
She ignored him and carried on, "It'll take about 45 minutes to gather all of the information, so it should be done by the time I'm finished with your body."   
Picard raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly will you be doing with my body in 45 minutes?"  
"Nothing you'll enjoy." She told him pointedly.  
"Some things never change."   
Beverly ignored him again, save for a rueful smile. "So apart from your foot how are you physically? Anything bothering you?"   
"No," he said, "I'm fine."   
Despite herself Beverly kept on smiling, for in her mind she had to agree; if the image on her view screen that morning was anything to go by, very fine.   
"Still exercising?" She asked with what she hoped was professional nonchalance.   
Picard nodded, "More than ever. I have a lot of spare time now."   
She ran a tricorder over his body and studied the results. "Well everything seems okay at a glance, if you take your shirt off I'll get a bit more detailed."  
Without descent or flirtation Picard obliged and sat, naked from the waist up, facing her.   
His lightly browned body and thick arms were contoured with muscle even in repose.   
Beverly flicked her eyes from her padd to him, taking in the thin crop of white/grey hair that covered his pecs then dropped in a silvery line to his stomach, leading any eyes that might be looking further down.   
She locked her eyes upon her padd once more and tried to reconcile the date of birth given with the body of the man before her. "How much spare time did you say you had?" She felt compelled to ask.   
"A lot," Jean-Luc smiled, quietly pleased with himself, "Why?" he questioned innocently, "is everything alright?"  
"Everything's fine.." said Beverly absently. She drew her teeth over her bottom lip. "Really, really fine." Then she snapped back to business and tried not to let her hands linger too long on his chest as she attached two monitors to it. "These will check your lungs and the performance of you artificial heart among other things." She explained to him, careful not to let her line of sight waiver from his eyes.  
"Uhhu." He held her in regard, seeing the faint trace of a flush in her cheeks. Privately Picard revelled in. It had been a long time since he had been able to fluster Beverly Crusher. More often than not he would be the one left flustered and frustrated by some quick and withering remark, some wickedly flirtatious aside: when she spoke and flashed him a smile reminding him over and over why he always wanted her. Of course Beverly would, without fail, retreat from it and throw up a tactful barrier, pushing him back in to their holding pattern – soft and close and always promising but never quite there.   
But she was there now, before him, and still trying hard not to look at his body. For a moment Jean-Luc even entertained the thought that Beverly might still find him attractive in a more meaningful way. He told himself not to be ridiculous. After all, they had left the ENTERPRISE some time ago. Back then he had genuinely held some hope that, perhaps, with the complications of rank and professional commitment no longer a factor something might develop between them; it hadn't, at least not in the way he has wished for. Beverly had continued to keep that almost imperceptible distance between them. So he contented himself with the reddening of her cheeks.   
Mentally Crusher chided herself for letting his body get the better of her head. "Jean-Luc," she said, drawing the line in the sand once more, "lets get on with this examination shall we."   
But even as Picard agreed, Beverly she couldn't help but steal anotherwhat she hoped was a discreet glimpse of his body one more time.  
  
The shirt had been replaced some time since when Beverly asked of her patient, "So, last chance, anything you want to let me know about?" She knew that sometimes more embarrassing matters required a little coaxing.  
Picard shifted in his seat, he hadn't been sure if he was going to say it. , "It's not a big problem," he began reluctantly, "but, um..., well I think I've been getting forgetful lately...and a little clumsy." He motioned down to his newly mended foot with a sigh. The admission wasn't one he had relished making. He knew the implications were too great.   
His own feelings were confirmed by a shared moment of frightened silence as a single thought swallowed them both.  
"Well," said Beverly as breezily as she could manage, "we all forget things from time to time." Picard shook his head.  
"I'm sure it's nothing," she pulled the monitor she had attached to his forehead off, "and if there is anything this will find it. I can have the results analysed by tomorrow." She felt sick to her stomach, her insides churning but fought to keep it from her face. "I really wouldn't worry too much."   
It sounded hollow.   
"No," said Picard, affirming Beverly's lie with one of his own, "I'm sure it's nothing."   
"Tomorrow," her words were too keen. "I can have the results by tomorrow."   
He nodded, "You can come to dinner and let me know." But he had already begun to resign himself to something he couldn't change.  
  
"Damn it."   
It was his own fault, allowing his mind to wander, thinking about his future – remembering it as Q had shown him.  
An ex-wife and a disobedient mind. Not much to look forward to, so he hadn't. He preferred not to wallow in the what if's and could be's.   
But now, it seemed, the fluid possibilities that his future could offer him were setting to an unforgiving mould.   
He laughed, but cheerful thoughts were furthest from his head not with happiness, seeing the image of Captain Picard on her bridge.  
"You kept the name." He said to an empty room.  
It seemed preposterous. He shook his head in rejection of the very thought. The prospect of an approaching illness seemed far more real than the picture of Beverly as his wife. Not now, after all this time.   
So consumed by these thoughts had he been that Jean-Luc had paid little heed to the task at hand and the knife he held that should have cut vegetables sliced his flesh instead.   
"Damn it!" He repeated, stemming the flow of blood with a cloth and went for the first aid kit.  
He had finished healing the wound and was sitting brooding over it when there was a knock on his door. Picard's eyes flashed up to the clock on the wall. Beverly wasn't due for another two hours but he expected no other visitors. With a sense of foreboding he answered the door.  
"Hi." It was her, agitated and nervous.  
For the first time he could ever remember Jean-Luc wished her away.   
"I said eight didn't I? I did say eight?" The words were unconnected with his thoughts, "I haven't started dinner yet. It was eight wasn't it?"   
"Huh, yeah eight." Beverly was too absorbed in her own feelings to register his words - or the anxiety held in them - properly, trying only to on hold on to her own thoughts. "I've been thinking about you all day. I didn't want to wait any more."  
Picard stepped aside to let her in, taking a deep breath of the outside air outside as he did so. "Well?" He asked and closed the door on the outside world.   
Desperately Beverly wanted all the words running round her head to tumble down and spill out of her mouth but there was too much to say and so much time had already been lain to waste.   
"I love you." The unsteady words freed themselves from her mouth before she pressed it to Jean-Luc's.  
There was a moment, just a fraction of a second between her first bold touch and Picard's realisation of it. It came and it went leaving him caring for nothing else in the world except Beverly and her kisses: Anything – all things melted into oblivion as he pulled his arms around her and returned her affections.  
  
She fell back on the bed. Picard was covering the length of her in feathery kisses, his fingertips skimming her thighs, feeling the flesh give under his touch. Beverly let her hands wander over his back; the firm lines of a strong man met her embrace and his powerful arms folded around her. Jean-Luc reached up and brushed a strawberry-silver hair away from her face. He traced the line of her jaw with soft strokessoftly and then moved to the bow of her mouth. She kissed the loitering fingers with tiny, sensuous nibbles. The temptation was too much for Picard and his mouth quickly replaced them.   
Beverly tangled her creamy limbs around his body him then a breath escaped her so fiercely it made a sound all it's own as Jean-Luc began to let himself in to her. He drew his head back to see her face.   
"I'm fine," she said answering the question in his eyes, "it's been a while," she brought her mouth closer to his ear and whispered other words to him.  
A murmur of laughter ran from Picard and was lost as he put his lips against the soft slope of her shoulders. "Flattery will get you everything," he whispered back to her and it was her turn to laugh before her breath overtook her again. Beverly's back arched involuntarily as her body accepted all of him and lost itself to their passionate rhythm.  
  
They had been laying together for some time. The haze of orgasm had cleared from Picard's mind and the clarity had brought a visitor most unwelcome.   
Powerful delight gave way to a fiercer disgust as Jean-Luc realised that the happiness he had found was something that his own mind would steal from him, betraying him with insanity and infirmity. He had to know.   
"Hey," he said softly, "you awake?"   
"Hmm?" Beverly was resting in the crook of his arm letting blissfulblissful, incoherent thoughts drift through her head.   
"I need to hear you say it."   
Another hmm.   
"What's going to kill me?" His tone was far lighter than his words.   
She twisted her head so that it rested on his chest, "With any luck, it'll be our sex life." She planted a small kiss on his nipple to seal her wish..   
"I'm serious Bev."   
Beverly turned on her side and propped herself up on an elbow, "What are you talking about Jean-Luc?"   
He arched his body to face her, not quite believing that she had forgotten but, like a man, strangely flattered that perhaps he had made her forget, "My scan."   
A look of horror came across her face at its mention, "Oh God Jean-Luc I'm so sorry."   
His stomach lurched before she had even finished speaking. He pulled himself up to sit against the headboard of the bed as if it would somehow fortify him.   
"I got so caught up in all of this," Beverly continued, "I'm so sorry."   
"So is it irramodic syndrome?"   
"What? No!" She sat up sharply, exposing naked breasts to the cooler air of the room. "Jean-Luc," she began with unreserved glee, "you're perfectly healthy."   
A bewildered look took his face over, "But this," he said referring to their bed, "and downstairs?"   
Beverly went a little red; sheepishly she told him, "Well...I couldn't believe how good you still looked without a shirt on. I mean, you're in better shape than most men twenty years your junior," she coughed at the admission she was about to make, "and some women. When your scan results came back clear the only things I could think of were all the times I'd backed away from you and if the scan results had been different I might never have the chance I have now. After that the results just faded into the background." She paused and let one last confession out. "I just wanted to get you in to bed."   
He was reeling, punch drunk. "I'm alright? But the forgetfulness?"   
Beverly batted him on the arm. "It's called being relaxed. You should have tried it more often when you were younger. It might not have come as such a shock to you now."   
"So it's not there?"   
She sighed and became earnest. "Jean-Luc from the day you told me I have been looking for any sign of its onset. It hasn't happened. In my professional opinion I don't think it's going to happen."   
"I'm not going to get ill?"   
She shook her head., "Not with irramodic syndrome."   
Picard thought back to Q's prophetic trip through time. "Just promise me one thing." "Anything."   
"Promise me you will never marry me."  
Beaming back at him she said, "Never." A slightly startled look came to her face as she felt his hands were they had rarely been before. "Jean-Luc, what are you doing?"   
"Trying to commit suicide." He told her just before Beverly took his words with a kiss and they began to make love again.


End file.
